


Bed of Roses

by tjmystic



Series: Pre-Season 3 Ficathon [2]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: American Beauty AU, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-25
Updated: 2014-11-10
Packaged: 2017-12-24 14:09:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/940893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tjmystic/pseuds/tjmystic





	1. Chapter 1

Bed of Roses  
wayamy27narf prompted: American Beauty AU (sort of)

Rating: PG

Author’s Note: … yeah, I majorly deviated from the prompt here. Amy asked for hot adulterous smut (specifically, Gold dreaming of Belle in a bathtub filled with roses), instead I give you angst with a horrible plot and not even the promise of sex to make it better. Also, this story sucks. But if for whatever reason you believe it’s actually okay, feel free to prompt me smuttier scenes for this verse and I’ll try to make them happen. ”Try” being the operative word. Let’s just hope Accustomed is better. *sigh Alright, well, on with you then - hope you enjoy it at least a little bit.

 

If anyone were to ask the citizens of Storybrooke whose lives, other than their own, they would rather be living, the unanimous answer would be “the Golds”. 

And it wasn’t difficult to understand why. 

Mrs. Cora Gold was the town’s mayor, a crisp, respectable woman in her early fifties who still retained every ounce of power and appeal that she’d possessed in her twenties. She was always well dressed, always on time, and always smiling. The ornaments on her desk – all in perfectly pristine condition – ranged from the blood red roses her husband bought her every Monday to pictures of each of her daughter’s achievements. The perfect wife and mother. If perhaps the rest of the town council avoided her whenever possible, and if the people who worked in her office trembled in her presence, the citizens brushed it off as being a consequence of her striking aura. 

Regina Gold, the eighteen-year-old daughter, was captain of the school equestrian team, president of her graduating class, and a contender for the spot of Valedictorian. She went to every dance, every game, and still babysat the only daughter of Leopold White, the second-richest man in town, every weekend. Her parties were the stuff of legend, from the pony she received on her fifth birthday to the rock band that performed at her sweet sixteen. Her peers and teachers alike thought of her only as kind, easy-tempered, and helpful. They never remembered the dark rings under her eyes, or the nail marks that appeared on her hands whenever her mother’s name was mentioned. 

But Aurum Gold, the family patriarch, landlord of at least half of Storybrooke and owner of its only pawnshop on the side, without question, was the most envied of the three of them. Stern, menacing, and impeccably dressed. He cast a shadow of fear at least twice as dark as his wife’s, but what did that matter when he was a known multi-billionaire? He could have whatever he wanted with a snap of his fingers – a black Cadillac and maroon Rolls Royce included – and could do whatever he wanted in much the same way. As far as the public was concerned, that power was all that mattered. 

And the Golds were the most powerful family in the entire town. 

It never occurred to anyone that the Golds themselves could be unsatisfied. 

Mr. Gold leafed through the papers in front of him, making marks where he saw defaulted loans and late payments. It was tedious work, something he could do at the shop rather than at home, but it was that or listen to his wife and daughter fight. He’d never mastered the art that so many other men excelled at, the ability to drone out the female voices in their house, and, much as he wanted to, he couldn’t pretend he didn’t hear them. Instead, he was forced to listen to his heartbroken little girl. The second bit of proof – as if he needed more – that he’d entirely failed as a father.

“Mom, I don’t want to go to Ursula’s party!” Regina shouted, trailing furiously after her mother. 

Cora stopped only to look at herself in the hall mirror and straighten her hair. Gold bit his lip to keep quiet, regardless of how much he wanted to tell her to listen to their daughter.

“I can’t see why not,” she answered pleasantly. “She’s from a good family with old money and, more importantly, she’s in high standing at Storybrooke University. She could open a lot of doors for you, Regina.”

Regina crossed her arms. “She can shut them right back. I’ve already told you I’m not going to school there. I didn’t even apply there.”

“I know you didn’t.” She smirked at her reflection and turned around. “That’s why I did for you. And don’t worry, I’ve already signed your acceptance letter for you, too. You’ll be starting in September.”

Gold lifted his head from his work, the papers crinkling in his hands. Before him, Regina had skidded to a halt. She was white as a sheet. 

“You… what?” she hissed. 

Cora stepped towards her daughter and patted her shoulder. “The dean of admissions appreciates initiative, dear,” she smiled. “If we’d waited any longer, he would’ve turned you down, regardless of how good your grades are. And you don’t have to worry about those other schools, we’ve already declined their offers.”

Regina trembled, and Gold clenched his hands tighter. “We’ve – mother, how could you? You know I want to go to school in Virginia.”

“Regina, Virginia’s so far away.” She sighed, and lifted her hand to Regina’s cheek, stroking it with her thumb. “We’d miss you.”

He twitched, and Cora’s eyes narrowed on him for a moment before returning to their daughter. He’d heard that phrase often enough to know exactly what it meant. School in Virginia would mean Regina wouldn’t be trapped under her mother’s thumb, surrounded by her spies and allies. Cora wouldn’t miss her – she’d miss the control she would have over her. And to her, them, control was everything.

But Regina obviously hadn’t learned that lesson yet. Her eyes watered, her cheek nuzzling carelessly into her mother’s palm. 

“I promise I’d come home on the weekend,” she tried feebly. “And I could try to schedule more breaks so I could visit then, too.”

Cora simpered and stroked the tear from her nose. “I know you would, darling. But it’s so much simpler this way. You understand, don’t you?”

Regina bit her tongue, the obvious action causing more tears to well in her eyes, but, finally, she nodded. Cora sighed in relief and pinched her cheek.

“Good. Now, why don’t we finish this discussion on your way to Ursula’s, hmm?”

Their daughter’s eyelids fluttered. “Mom, I… I really don’t want to go.”

Her mother looked at her sharply, and, suddenly, the atmosphere in the room changed. Gold attempted to go back to his papers, but it was difficult, knowing what was coming next. He didn’t have to see Regina’s reaction to know that Cora’s loving touch had become pinching. 

“Why don’t you want to go, dear?” she asked carefully, her voice too sweet to be anything but menacing.

Regina shuffled. “I kind of had other plans.” 

“Oh?” she laughed. “And what are you doing that’s so much more important than the party? No one’s called for you, you don’t have plans with anyone. Darling, this is the highlight of your year.”

She shivered, and Gold clenched his cane, his papers all but abandoned. Reminding their daughter that she didn’t have many friends was a low blow even for her. 

“I… I was going to…”

“Going to what?”

She looked at her feet. “I was going to hang out with the neighbors,” she mumbled. 

Cora groaned and shook her head. “You might as well be spending time with that flea-ridden horse. This isn’t up for debate, Regina. Get in the car.” 

“No.”

Cora raised her eyebrow. “What did you say to me, young lady?”

Regina blanched, but she held firm. “I… I said no.” 

“Now, you’re making me very late for my dinner meeting, we have to go –”

She lunged for the door, slamming it shut just as Cora touched the doorknob. Her eyes were wide with fear, her skin returned to that sickly pale color from before, and she suddenly seemed much smaller. It didn’t occur to Gold until he was moving that the latter was because he’d stood up.

“She sells drugs, mom!” she screeched hysterically, blocking the door as best she could. “Everyone there is going to be high, they always are!” 

“Well you’re not ‘everyone’, darling,” Cora huffed. “Who said you had to take anything? Just show up and make small talk, it isn’t that difficult. I make a living of it.”

“I’m not you, mom! And you can’t make me go!” 

SLAP!

Regina grabbed her cheek, hissing at the impact from her mother’s nails, and he was done.

“Cora, enough!” he bellowed. 

His wife backed away towards the wall, abandoning her observation of her bloody fingernails. Her husband was a dormant monster, but a monster all the same, and she knew he could match her toe-to-toe if he decided it was worth the fight. But still she held her head high, eyes steady and unblinking. 

“Enough,” he repeated. “You will not raise a hand to my daughter, is that clear?”

Cora shifted threateningly. “She was being insubordinate, I –”

“I said, is that clear?”

She chewed on her tongue, but, finally, she nodded. He sneered in return.

“Good.” 

He felt safe enough to look over his shoulder at Regina, and his stomach dropped at the sight. He’d never seen her look so young and fragile. With a gulp, he turned back to his wife. 

“I won’t have my daughter attend a college party with drugs and drunk boys,” he snapped. “She is eighteen, she’ll do what she bloody well pleases. And if that means spending time with the neighbors, so be it.” 

Cora smiled. “Approve of our new neighbors, do you? Aren’t they just a bit low for your taste?”

His blood boiled, his body threatening to burst in rage. The words “I’ve seen the way you look at her” danced tauntingly through his brain. Worse, he couldn’t figure out if it was his wife’s voice, or his own. 

He glared. 

“Go,” he hissed. “We can further discuss things when you come back from your meeting.” 

She eyed him, her gaze sweeping over every inch as if looking for just the right string to pull. At the last second, though, she deflated and looked away – for the night, he’d won himself some peace. 

“Fine. Walk me outside?” 

The motion hurt, the tendons in his neck taut and hard from the pressure, but he managed a curt nod at her. His fingers curled around the knob, opening it to let her out, and he shot Regina an apologetic look as he followed her mother out.

She didn’t speak to him their whole walk down the driveway, nor did she even bother to turn around, swaying maddeningly as she strutted towards their garage in her heels. He worried – if not feared – that she had some sort of revenge planned out for him, but the moment he saw her face under the dim streetlights, he knew he was mistaken. She wasn’t angry – it seemed that she was impressed. 

Flipping her hair over one shoulder, she settled herself against her silver convertible and laughed breathily.

“I’d forgotten about your bite,” she grinned. “You haven’t used it in a while.” 

He didn’t waver in the least. The shake of her hips alone used to be enough to turn him on, and that wicked smirk used to bring him to his knees. But she hadn’t aroused him in years, though, a fact that had nothing to do with her age and everything to do with her cruelty. He’d been the monster in the beginning, to be sure, and he’d taught her every trick of the trade, weaning her from the life of a shopkeeper to that of a high-income real estate agent. It hadn’t occurred to him that his student would surpass him in cruelty. 

Gold hummed noncommittally, refusing to rise to the bait, and unlocked her car door. Leaning forward, he pressed a quick kiss to her cheek and glanced away.

“Love you.” 

The lie burnt his tongue, but it was his last hope. Maybe if he said it enough, he could make it true.

Miraculously, Cora smiled at the sentiment, a real, honest smile, and the small part of his heart that retained hope for their future fluttered. She leaned forward, barely brushing his cheek, and moved her mouth to his ear.

“Darling, please,” she said. “We’re both too old for fairytales.”

If he had a heart, and if it wasn’t already broken, those words might have shattered it. But, as it was, it hardly fazed him. In a way, that hurt worse.

She wiggled away from his ear and pressed her lips to his, hard and demanding, but closed and dry and lacking any passion. She used to wind herself around him and thrust her tongue behind his teeth before he could even shut the door behind him. Now, he shut his eyes in repugnance.

Her lips popped as she dragged them away from his skin, and she traced his jaw with the hand she’d used to smack her daughter.

“Don’t wait up,” she simpered. 

Without a second glance, she shoved him away and slid into her Mercedes. The key turned, the lights flicked on, and then she was rolling off down the driveway. He waited for the hurt, for sickness or disease or something to overtake him, but the only thing he felt was numb. 

He sighed, and walked back inside. 

The hall was empty when

“Regina?” he called. “Regina, love, where are you?” 

A faint popping noise met his ears. “In the kitchen, dad.”

Eyebrows furrowed, he hobbled after her voice. It didn’t take long to figure out where she was, the freezer door open and hoarse, almost-sobs coming from inside. Gold cleared his throat, shuffling from foot to foot.

"Are you alright?"

The freezer squelched shut, and Regina stepped back, an ice-pack in hand. The scratches on her cheek were just as angry as he’d feared they’d be, and she shook when she lifted the block of ice to it. She hissed, and he was there in an instant, his weak hands aching to make it better.

"Here, let… let me."

Regina hesitated, the ice sitting just an inch from her skin. He sighed and reached for it himself, and she slowly handed it over. He was relieved that she didn’t flinch away from his touch.

He smiled, however dimly, and led her to sit on the counter. It was the only way he could reach her face - God knew she hadn’t gotten her height from him or her mother. The thought made his grin turn wry.

A faint popping noise met his ears. “In the kitchen, dad.”

Eyebrows furrowed, he hobbled after her voice. It didn’t take long to figure out where she was, the freezer door open and hoarse, almost-sobs coming from inside. Gold cleared his throat, shuffling from foot to foot.

"Are you alright?"

The freezer squelched shut, and Regina stepped back, an ice-pack in hand. The scratches on her cheek were just as angry as he’d feared they’d be, and she shook when she lifted the block of ice to it. She hissed, and he was there in an instant, his weak hands aching to make it better.

"Here, let… let me."

Regina hesitated, the ice sitting just an inch from her skin. He sighed and reached for it himself, and she slowly handed it over. He was relieved that she didn’t flinch away from his touch.

He smiled, however dimly, and led her to sit on the counter. It was the only way he could reach her face - God knew she hadn’t gotten her height from him or her mother. The thought made his grin turn wry.

"Move your leg a bit, if you don’t mind," he said carefully, indicating the drawer beneath her knee. She shifted, and he pulled out the jar of salve he kept inside for his ankle. He didn’t know if it would help with cuts, but Cora didn’t keep any medicine of her own in the house.

He dabbed some of the paste on his fingers, and rubbed it gingerly across his daughter’s face. She winced at the tingling sensation, but at his harried apology, she settled back down.

She rolled her wrist - an action her mother had taught her to keep from wringing her hands - and glanced towards him as he finished massaging it in.

"Thanks for sticking up for me,” she murmured. 

Gold snorted in derision and returned the ice to her skin. “I should’ve interceded before it got that far. No need to thank me, love.” 

Her gaze drifted away. “It wasn’t that big a deal, dad. It’s not the first time she’s done it.” She laughed and rolled her eyes. “A lady has to know discipline.” 

The ice pack almost slipped from his grip, sliding down her face and revealing the angry marks underneath. His stomach roiled. 

“Why haven’t you said anything before?” he asked carefully. He needn’t bother asking if she really meant it – they both knew what her mother was capable of. 

Regina blinked in confusion. “What would you have even done?” she mumbled. 

Part of his soul – the same part that had been untouched by Cora’s leaving – died for her. His own daughter didn’t think he would save her. 

And worse, she was right.

Eyes still down, she leapt off the counter and away from him, leaving him standing with the ice pack in midair. Gold floundered, his other hand clenched around his cane as he tried to follow her. 

“Your mother won’t be home till tomorrow morning,” he stammered. “We could do something, together, if you wanted.” 

Regina seemed to ignore him, grabbing instead for her purse and shoes. 

“We could go out for ice cream,” he tried desperately. “You… you still like ice cream, right?” 

She nodded absently and took out her phone, typing in something that he couldn’t read from the distance, but whatever it was made her smile, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen one on her face.

“I was going to go over to Henry’s house for a while,” she answered. “He wanted to see me.”

His stomach dropped. “Ah.”

“And then I promised I was going to the neighbor’s.”

Subconsciously, he found his stare drifting in the direction of the neighbors on their right. 

“The Frenches?”

Her attention was back on her phone. “What? Oh, I mean, yeah,” she mumbled, shuffling out the front door. “The Frenches. I’ll be home tomorrow before school, okay.”

Gold followed after her. “Alright,” he agreed a little desperately. “I love –”

Regina slammed the door, cutting him off midsentence. He stood there, the absolute definition of pathetic, reaching out for her as if she’d come back, only long enough to realize how ridiculous he looked. Always reaching for women who didn’t want him. His first wife. His second wife. His daughter.

His daughter’s best friend. 

Gold shook his head and trudged towards the back of the house, kicking off his shoes and shucking his tie and coat as he went. He grabbed the decanter of liquor he kept in the hall, set the cap down on the table, and headed straight for the backyard. He wouldn’t be needing any glasses.

Henry. Henry Mills. Of course she’d rather spend time with him. Their beloved ex-mayor, the naïve little bugger who’d allowed Cora to waltz in and take over their whole town. Of course she’d prefer him – nice, pleasant, and completely innocent as he was. 

Of course she’d rather spend time with her real father. 

He wasted no time in downing at least a shot’s worth of the whiskey, throwing it back better than any man his size had the right to. Their patio didn’t so much as waver when he sat down on it, still completely sober, his legs hanging off the steps that led to their labyrinth of a garden. The fountain Cora had erected the day he bought the last house in Storybrooke babbled quietly. 

He took another long swig. One shot for failing as a father. One for failing as a husband. 

A good husband, he knew, would inspire his partner to be a better person. Would help them through all their issues, and teach them that all they needed was love. A good husband wouldn’t ignore the obvious signs that his wife needed help. But he wasn’t a good husband, not in the least. All he ever did was make Cora worse. Of course, it had been intentional at the start. He’d been young, and stupid, and intent on making his second wife into a “bad girl” he could thoroughly enjoy and who would thoroughly enjoy him. Then he’d been a stupid young man who, realizing that his wife was less rough around the edges and more sociopathic, let her have her way for fear that she would leave him. 

Now, he was just stupid. But at least the call of power was beginning to die for him. It was a crutch he’d leant on for so long, but now it meant as much to him as the shrubs surrounding their flowers. What was power when no one gave a damn about him? 

And he owed that revelation to a little girl with blue eyes who was way too far out of his league. 

He closed his eyes, and drowned himself in half the bottle. 

One shot for being a despicable excuse of a human being.

“Seems I came over at a good time.”

Gold sputtered on his drink, spraying half of it across the steps at the sound of her voice. It was like she knew that he was thinking of her, like she knew and couldn’t bear to give him the peace of mind to mourn her existence. But she was too good a person to torture him that way – and in that respect, she was completely different from anyone else he knew. 

“Belle. Hey,” he coughed, trying his best to mop himself up before he looked at her. He was nothing to look at in the first place, but he was less than nothing covered in his own drink. 

Especially when compared to her. When he lifted his head, he saw that, as usual, she was in her pajamas, a pale blue set covered in teacups that covered her arms, midriff, and legs. It was soft, and pure, and so completely her. Never stopped him from dreaming about her wearing less, though.

He took another drink, and Belle wrinkled her pretty little nose, a sad smile on her rounded lips and a light of pity in her bright blue eyes. 

“Whiskey tonight,” she sighed, setting her own cup of tea down between them. “That’s never a good thing.”

“Aye, well, old habits,” he grumbled. “Which, speaking of, you weren’t in our rose bushes again, were you?”

Belle blushed, the color doing nothing to distract him, and sat by his side. No matter how many times they did this, it always reminded him of the first. Her yellow sundress, reading Jane Eyre, and completely ignoring the opening game that Cora had suggested they go to as a “family”. 

“I can’t help it,” she apologized. “Half of them are dying, and the other half are all mottled. It’s like someone decided to paint the white roses red. They need help. I see them from my window all the time, and I can’t stand it. I wanted something here to… thrive.” 

Gold chuckled at her speech, even if her words needled into him. She’d only put her book down at the game after the third time he’d stood up and looked for his wife and daughter, neither of them sitting beside him where they were supposed to be. Had asked him rather politely if he’d lost anything. He’d been cold, and harsh, but she’d refused to cow down to him like anyone else would. Her voice was cool and honest when she snapped back, “Though I find this dreadfully boring, there are some people who enjoy this sport, and you’re bothering them. Please – I’m only trying to help you.”

She hadn’t stopped trying to “help” him ever since. 

He looked at his decanter, already half-empty, but, thinking better of it, pushed it away. Belle’s feet swung over the railing like his did, and, for whatever reason, that made something in his head click. 

“Shouldn’t you be at home?” he asked. “Regina said you two were having a sleepover.”

A gleam that he greatly tried to ignore lit Belle’s eyes. She was almost smirking when she said, “Did she?”

Gold eyed her carefully. So far, she’d given him every reason to believe that she was better than all other women – that she didn’t lie – but, then, it could also mean she was just particularly good at it. It hadn’t been too long ago that he fell for it with Cora. 

“Yes. She said she was going to Mr. Mills’s house, and then she was going to the neighbors.”

Belle stared at him, scrutinized him, as if trying to decide whether or not he was worthy of something. I the confines of his mind, he groaned – Lord knew he didn’t deserve whatever she tried to grant him. 

To his surprise, though, her smile grew, and the look in her eyes shifted from just bright to something he hadn’t seen in ages. A look of trust. A look of faith in him.

“Oh, she meant the other neighbor,” she finally said, pointing to the house at the opposite end of the fence. Even looking at the front yard, Gold drew a blank, and not just because he couldn’t figure out why she was telling him whatever she was telling him.

“Sorry, who?” he muttered. 

“The Thackarey boy, Daniel.” At his confused stare, Belle continued. “You know Daniel. Works in the school polo stables? About yea-high with dark hair?”

Gold looked at her blankly, and she laughed, swirling her tea with her spoon as she did so. If he wasn’t so confused, he might have been enchanted. 

“You really don’t pay much attention to your daughter, do you?” 

If she were anyone else, the expression in his eyes would have been described as “hateful”. With her, though, he only felt guilty and vaguely affronted. 

“I try,” he huffed. “But she never talks to me. Never talks to anyone, far as I know. Except for maybe you and this,” the name felt like slime on his tongue, “Daniel.”

Belle chuckled and patted his knee. He tried not to jerk – nor do anything else that would scare her – but it was a near miss. The first time she’d accidentally brushed his hand, he’d had to excuse himself for an hour to make sure his pants weren’t bulging. All while she and Regina had been in the next room. 

Disgust turned his stomach into knots, and he abandoned his goal of not taking another sip. 

“Oh, she doesn’t tell me any more than she tells you,” she said. He couldn’t help but notice that sadness lurking behind the words. “I know you like to think we’re best friends, but, really, I’m just her cover.” 

“Then why are you telling me all this?”

“Because I can trust you.”

If he hadn’t been sitting down, he was quite certain he would’ve fallen off the porch. His eyes searched frantically for hers, afraid to find that she was joking or mocking him. But, even more miraculously, she wasn’t – there was nothing in her eyes but truth. 

Nothing she’d ever done to him had shocked him more. Not the first time she’d asked to help him clean his pawns after coming home with Regina. Not when she’d come over to apologize for being so rude to him and then introducing herself as the new neighbor. Not even at the blasted ball game which she’d spent the rest of talking to him, arguing with him and shouting at him and telling him he wasn’t as cruel as he seemed to think he was until Cora appeared and dragged him away for an interview in the paper. She might as well have said she loved him. But that was a daydream too far eve for him. 

The enormity of what she’d done seemed to pass right over her head, though. None of the depth, the relief, he felt in his soul, was mirrored in her face. 

“That, and the cover isn’t really for you,” she continued nonchalantly, as if she hadn’t just made his world capsize. She only smiled wryly. “It’s more for Mrs. Gold.”

Belle took a steady sip of her tea, but the steam did nothing to warm the tone of her voice. 

“Can… can I be honest with you, Mr. Gold?”

“I thought you were always honest with me.” For the sake of both their sanities, he tried not to let his tone convey the slight hurt he felt at the thought she might be lying to him. 

The fear ebbed away as soon as he saw the offence written plainly on her. “Of course I am!” she said, crossing her arms and glaring at him in her blue pajamas. “It’s just… this is important, and I want to make sure you won’t get mad at me for saying it.”

“I could never be mad at you, Belle,” he interjected, and damn him but he reached for her hand as he said it. He blamed his candor on the drink, despite the fact that he hadn’t been drunk in years. It was better, and much easier to cope with, than the alternative. 

Seeing her smile made all his damnation worth it. 

“You know, everyone told me, when I moved in next door, that you were the most fearsome man in the world. But I don’t think you are.”

He laughed darkly. “Oh? And here I thought you knew me. I’m a despicable, loathsome creature, dearie. An absolute monster. I taint everything I touch.”

“I don’t think you’re that bad at all,” she argued. “You act tough so people can’t hurt you. You seek power because you don’t want to be weak. But you’re a good person, deep down, and nothing you can do can make you forget that.” She looked at her feet, almost shyly, and then glanced back to him. “Besides, you’re my only real friend.”

She must’ve misinterpreted his expression as one of offence, rather than the sudden warmth he had no right at all to feel for her, for she covered quickly, “I love your daughter, I do. But you were rather more right than you realize when you said she only opens up to me and Daniel. Except about the ‘me’ part. She tells me what her plans are every weekend, and what to say if you or Cora come looking for her, but she never talks to me about her dreams, or her fears, or anything that goes on in her life.” 

She took a quick sip of her tea, but it couldn’t hardly hide the redness tinged about her lips. “The only person who tells me any of that is you. I… I think you must be the only person, in any town dad and I have lived in, that genuinely cares enough about me to…” 

Her cheeks rivaled the color of the apples on the tree by Regina’s window, and he couldn’t stop staring at her for the world. He wanted to know how that sentence ended more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life. But before he could even begin to work up the nerve to ask her, she was clearing her throat and moving the cup from her mouth. If she wanted to retain their composure, than he’d do everything in his power to comply. He had her friendship – he couldn’t want for anything more. Not that he could get away with, anyway.

“No, the real monster, from what I’ve seen, is your wife,” she finally muttered. “That’s what I wanted to be honest about. I think I’d rather die than be married to such a person.”

"You’ve obviously never experienced hate sex, then," he drawled dryly.

The tea Belle had just sipped on sprayed out of her mouth, coating the deck between them. Gold smirked and took the cup from her hands. He enjoyed the disgust in her eyes much more than he should have. 

“A quip, dearie,” he smirked. “Not serious.”

He capped his liquor with his cufflink and settled back against the porch railing. In this light, the garden almost looked welcoming. Almost. 

“To be quite honest, we don’t have much of any kind of… well,” he muttered, cutting himself off to save her modesty. “Not in years.”

For the first time, her tea was left forgotten between them. “What about Regina?”

Gold looked at her in confusion. “What about her?” 

“Well, you know…” Belle droned off, her cheeks coloring yet again, and if she didn’t stop soon, he’d really ruin things by trying to find ways of making her do so more often. “If you and Mrs. Gold have such… intimacy, issues, then how did Regina get here?”

Again, he searched her face for signs of mockery. She had to be fooling him. She had to know just how wretched his life could be. But his Belle – and in the safety of his own thoughts, he dared to think of her as his – was genuinely confused. The gossip hadn’t fazed her. Or else, she’d never heard it at all.

He sniffed derisively, and twirled his feet in the cold dew beneath them. “Let’s just say I have reason to believe that neither of my children is actually mine.” 

A sharp noise choked in her throat. He tried to ignore it, tried to focus elsewhere, but he could no more ignore her than he could ignore his heart beating. 

When he turned to face her, he wanted to die. Crying. He’d made her cry. And all she’d ever wanted to do was make his life more bearable. He didn’t even care about what he’d done, or how he’d upset her, so long as he never did it again. Her harried sobs that she’d overheard them fighting before but never thought it would be anything like that barely met his ears.

But he felt her hand move from his arm to his knee. And he felt the compassion from her rolling off like waves.

“Oh, Rum…”

Seeing her tears, hearing her nickname that she’d come up with for him after the first couple of visits, were too much. He couldn’t take it. He’d stomached the thought of watching her eventually move on with her life and find someone else who’d share his hopes and dreams with her, had held down his nausea at the realization that she wouldn’t spend her nights talking with him forever. That one day she’d get over him and leave him wishing that he’d been born in a different time, where he and Belle could be together and Cora would be nothing but a distant memory. The pain of those realizations were damn near unbearable. But the thought of her being unhappy was a million times worse. 

He stood to his feet as quickly as possible, hobbling upwards and knocking her hand from his body. He was already close to disgracing himself in front of her, in more ways than one, and staying any longer would only bring humiliation to both of them. 

“Well, I think it’s best I turned in now. I’ve had a long day, dearie,” he explained offhandedly. “Old bones need rest.”

She sniffled, and tried to reach for him. “You aren’t that old. Really, we can keep talking if you need –”

He cut her off with a sharp shake of his head. If he stayed, he’d only be taking hope from her that would never come to fruition. He’d want even more things that he couldn’t have. 

He should never have sat next to her at the ball game. He shouldn’t have started indulging himself with dreams about her, about her confessing that she loved him, even if no one else did. He should just let her go. Just let her be and end the misery of the night for the both of them. But he couldn’t resist prodding his own wounds.

“Belle… why do you really come over?” 

Belle almost tripped as she stood, and he was already abandoning his cane to catch her when she righted herself. He attempted to play it off as if he’d tripped, too, but he saw how pointless the gesture was when the corners of her mouth quirked up. 

“I already told you,” she said. “You’re my only real friend.”

“But that can’t be possible,” he all but pleaded. “You’re so kind, and smart, and brave, and lovely, and –”

He choked. He’d promised to never tell her, never even hint, at what he felt for her. She couldn’t know that he thought her beautiful, and he could never use the word “love” in her presence. To do so would only hurt her, just like he hurt everything else in his life. 

And, yet, the hurt had left her eyes. Her eyes, which were suddenly much closer to his than they should be. 

It didn’t occur to him until she was already past the gate, having moved rapidly away from him with her cheeks flaming red, that her lips had touched his cheek. That she’d told him thank you, that no one had ever said such kind things to her before… and kissed him. 

For one precious moment, it didn’t matter that he had an estranged son he no longer knew, a daughter who didn’t want him and did everything she could do say away. A wife who made everyone’s lives hell. It didn’t matter that his thoughts were perverse, pedophilic, as Belle was only seventeen years old. She’d kissed him. And nothing could be sweeter or more beautiful than that.


	2. Chapter 2

Bed of Roses - Part 2  
Giftee: wayamy27narf

Rating: NC-17  
Author’s Note: Welp, my hiatus is finally over. It’s been, what… 7 months? Is that really how long it’s been since I’ve posted anything? *cringes* Well, anyway, the point is that I’m back, and ready for action! I’m not gonna tell you how many fics I’ll be posting, but I will say that, from now through the end of the year, your dashes are gonna be plenty busy. Hope you enjoy :) 

 

Gold’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel as he turned out of the hospital parking lot. His whole body was on edge, twitchy and raw from too much caffeine and not enough sleep. In front of him, a zippy yellow Beetle jumped the line, and, though the cars ahead blared their horns and the passenger beside him clutched her seat, he barely noticed. And he certainly didn’t slow down. To be honest, he didn’t really give a damn

Drugged. His only daughter, the only child he had left, had been drugged. It didn’t matter that she was eighteen, that she hated him at least as much as she hated her mother. She was still his baby. And he’d almost lost her. 

His stomach churned, but he hid it behind his clenched fingers on the wheel. 

This wasn’t the first time he’d realized he was a horrible excuse for a father. It wouldn’t be the last, knowing kinds of choices he tended to make. His son Bailey from his first marriage was proof enough of that. Thirteen years of poverty, of homelessness, of trying and failing to provide for his boy and praying he wouldn’t die on the streets. 

And then he made the deal. 

It was a stroke of luck that he’d run into the head of Zoso Incorporated, especially considering that the man was pretending to be just as homeless as Gold himself at the time. It was even luckier that one good deed had convinced him that Gold was the right man to enact the scheme that had him playacting on the streets to begin with. Duke, the co-owner of the corporation had made some bad decisions – fraud, theft, and a number of other felonies included – and Zoso had notes on all of it. But he couldn’t risk getting his own hands, nor those of his clients, dirty. All Gold would have to do was deliver the papers to the feds and he’d be set for life. 

He did do that, eventually – after he showed the papers to Duke, had Zoso fired, and took his position as stockholder. Even years later, when the haze of those days and the rush of power was gone, he couldn’t remember how it worked out. Could hardly believe it. But it did. And, suddenly, he had all the money, all the material possessions, he and his son could ever want. 

All Bailey had ever wanted, though, was his father. And the evil, corporate-obsessed monster that had taken root in him was as far from who Gold used to be as possible. When he thought on it later, he realized it wasn’t a surprise his boy had run. If he’d only opened his eyes, he would’ve seen that they had everything to begin with – they had each other. 

Now he was rich, and powerful, and better, and he still didn’t have a thing. Not a son. Not a wife, really.

And after tonight, maybe not even a daughter. 

“Mr. Gold?” 

He didn’t turn, ignoring his passenger as easily as he apparently ignored everyone else in his life. His body betrayed him, though, arching towards her without his permission. But he still didn’t turn – seeing her right now wouldn’t help things. Failing Regina personally was bad enough. Falling in love with the girl next door who acted like his daughter’s best friend… well, that was a treachery too intense for him to own up to yet. 

Unusual for her, though, she couldn’t seem to see his thoughts. Her hand, small and shaking just like his, rested on his knee. “Mr. Gold, I think you should slow down.”

He still couldn’t look at her. The words barely made sense, anyway, just a jumble of sounds that he didn’t have the strength to understand. His vision had gone fuzzy, the road ahead whipping by in foggy sheets. It took him a moment to realize that it wasn’t his tears, just rain blasting against his windshield as he drove. 

“Mr. Gold?”

It wasn’t hard to imagine that the blurs of cars in front of were the people he’d lost. The ones that he’d forced away. Milah, gone. Bailey, gone. Cora, going. Regina… Regina…

“Mr. Gold, please stop!”

There were voices in his head now. Voices he only heard in his nightmares. He’d kept them at bay so long that it was terrifying to hear them while he was awake. But they were just as loud as ever. His first wife, snarling. I never loved you. Cora jerking at his cock while he kissed her. I want their knees to bleed. His son’s scribbled handwriting. You broke our deal! His daughter’s blank stare. What would you have even done?

“Rum, stop!”

He blinked rapidly, coming out of his stupor in an instant. His foot slammed on the breaks, stopping them dead in the middle of the interstate. Horns blared behind him even when he regained the sense enough to pull off into the grass. The noise made him flinch, but he was already awake. Belle saying his name had been enough.

Shivering, he pulled the keys from the ignition and turned in his seat. Belle was small beside him, curled into herself as if she wanted to be invisible, but he found her all the same. Seeing her, with her too-big sweater and clashing red skirt, was a much-needed jolt to his system, far more jarring then even her screams or the torrent of car horns. It was the first time he’d looked at her in more than eight hours.

For a moment, he let his eyes slip shut again. If he focused, he could pretend that they were still sitting on the patio, him in his full suit and tie, her in her blue teacup pajamas. Just like always. It wasn’t hard to remember how she smiled at him in the fading afternoon light when he told her that Cora would be gone all week, nor was it difficult to imagine how they’d joked about their mutual – and nonexistent – interest in sports. In memories, he could still feel the heat in his cheeks, the frantic thumping of his heart, when stammered, “Then why is it that our first meeting was at a basketball game?” He could pretend that she’d given an answer, and that her phone hadn’t rang. 

Thunder rolled overhead, every bit as loud as the cars on the highway were. Gold sighed and gave up on the fantasy. She wasn’t in her pajamas anymore. Her clothes were baggy, and mismatched, and seemed to swallow her whole. She must have grabbed the first things she saw after she hung up with Regina and ran home. He didn’t know – he’d been too busy yelling at Cora over the phone for lying to him, saying that she’d taken Regina to a mock-UN meeting in the city when in reality she’d abandoned her at Storybrooke University for an extended tour. His impressionable daughter, alone with a crowd of rich, pushy children who wanted to play adult with imported beers and lines of coke.

He should have gone in with Belle. He should have tossed the cell and followed into the frat house to look for his daughter amongst the throng of yuppie teenagers. They must have sneered at her in their designer clothes bought with daddy’s money. Must have laughed when she peeled Regina off the bathroom floor all by herself and hauled her downstairs. 

And all while he’d shouted into the phone, trying to make his wife understand that their daughter was in trouble. Trying to make her care. 

Belle cared. Not about her appearance, or popularity, or what people thought of her, but about his daughter. About him. She was so rare, so precious, and she didn’t even know. He blinked, trying to keep her in focus, trying to sear her into his memory as if her image might make him a better person, but she kept fading out. Like everything – everyone – else, she was slowly leaving him.

Who wouldn’t, though? Who would want to stay with a man who couldn’t even be bothered to save his own children?

“Rum, look at me.” Her voice was soft, raspy from staying up with him all night while Regina had her stomach pumped, but just as much of a balm for his broken soul as ever. “Rum, it’s not your fault. You didn’t know where Cora took her. It’s not your fault.” 

He nodded once, but stopped short when that made his vision worse. He needed to see her, and she was disappearing. Only when her blurry hands came forward, caressing his worn, wet cheeks, did he realize that she wasn’t really going anywhere. He was only crying.

It was a relief to know that he remembered how. 

“Belle,” he choked, but her hands were there, holding him close and petting his hair. “I failed. I failed her. Oh God, she could have died. My baby… she could have died. She could have died.”

“Shhh, it’s okay. I promise, it’s okay. The doctor said she’d be fine, remember? They just wanted to run a few more tests, and we weren’t helping them by hovering over her. She’ll be fine, Rum. You’re a good father. You did nothing wrong.”

He shook his head, the action almost imperceptible with how much the rest of him was heaving. But Belle noticed, and she held him fast, stilling his head in the crook of her neck while she rocked him. He felt like a babe in her arms instead of a man in his fifties, one so much older than her. She was his saving grace. Hearing her say he was a good father, no matter how wrong he knew the statement to be, grounded him like nothing else could. 

It seemed like hours passed that he just lay on her, letting the rain on the windshield drown out the sound of his sobs. Everything he’d bottled up from the moment the nurses pumped Regina full of charcoal had flooded out, leaving him numb all over again. He couldn’t feel a thing, not sadness, or hatred, or hopelessness. But he did feel Belle’s breath as it washed across his cheek, her fingers as they massaged his scalp, her pulse, beating softly beneath his jaw. 

Her breast, soft and warm, beneath his straying hand.

Slowly, he lifted his sticky face from her neck. His lips, tacky from the saline that painted them, opened uselessly as he tried to think of something to say. All of his thoughts, though, just like his emotions, were truly drained, leaving him bereft of even the good sense to be embarrassed or ashamed. It also meant that the walls he so carefully maintained to protect himself, especially when he was around Belle, had fallen. The knowledge of how he felt about her, the fact that superseded any minute, insignificant feeling he could ever have, rose to the surface.

Fingers flexing, he withdrew himself from her chest, trying to touch as little of her as possible. This was dangerous territory. Of that, at least, he was aware. And now wasn’t a good time, if indeed there was a good time, to take that risk. 

He’d only managed to scoot back into his own seat when her hand closed around his wrist, holding him, and his fingers, in place. 

He gulped, mouth suddenly dry. A thousand questions raced through his head, ranging from, “What are you doing?” to, “What if Cora finds out?”

But he didn’t ask any of those. The only words that left his lips were, “How old am I, love?”

She didn’t smile. Or laugh. She didn’t move, except to bring his palm closer to her peaked flesh. Her expression was every bit as serious as his, if not a little less lost and a lot more determined.

“Just a few years younger than my father,” she murmured. “And I don’t care.”

He should’ve stopped. He should’ve pulled the car back out and driven them home. 

But those words did it.

He laughed, a short thing barely longer than a sigh, and moved his free hand up to her face. She leaned into it before he could reach her, filling the gap with her soft, unwrinkled flesh. She gasped when he touched her, and he might have moved away had she not nuzzled deeper into him. She wanted this. Whatever this was. 

He counted their heavy breaths, suddenly in sync, as Belle inched into his lap. His palm was pressed full-length against her breast now, clutching at her instinctively even though he knew this was wrong. It was wrong. It was just so hard to convince himself that that was the truth when her skin was so warm and her bright, beautiful eyes never broke contact with his.

Ten breaths later, her lips touched his, and he stopped trying to stop himself.

Heart racing, eyelids fluttering, he closed his eyes, opened his mouth, and pulled her in. 

It was like he’d never kissed a woman before, all his many years of knowledge and experience vanished without a trace. His mouth moved over hers at a frantic pace that he hadn’t even possessed as a teenager, nipping teeth and roving tongue and shaking jaw. But Belle didn’t seem to mind, just as artless as he was though infinitely more innocent. 

Virginal.

The thought should’ve stopped him cold. Instead, it made his cock harden ever more, filling the front of his pants and straining against the zipper. He knew the moment that she felt it, too, her breath hitching, her body stalling as he rubbed against her thigh. But she never stopped kissing him. If anything, she became more focused on it, attempting to put as much of her tongue into his mouth as he had hers and nibbling along his lips in direct mimicry of him.

Moaning, he pushed himself tighter against her body. His hand was trapped between their chests, but he didn’t care just as long as she kept kissing him. Her hands were in his hair now, scratching his scalp like mad, and he welcomed the pain as well as the shot of lust that accompanied it. Any distraction from reality, he would take. If only for right now, she would be his own personal fantasy.

Belle drew back for breath, shaking and quivering in his arms. Her lips were bright red, almost bloody from the ferocity of their mouths. Her breasts felt heavier in his hands, pulsing up and down with the strength of each panting breath, rubbing her now-erect nipples against the flat of his palm. Blue eyes, glazed almost black, swept across his face and down, down past his neck, his chest, his hands. It only occurred to him when he followed her stare just how much he’d taken the idea of distraction to heart – somehow, without realizing it, he’d pushed her onto her back, and he was lying right on top of her. Both of their pants were half undone. And at the bottom of her underwear, almost imperceptible behind the metal of her zipper, was a small, dark, wet circle. 

Tongue-tied, throat dry, he made himself look away and back at Belle’s eyes. They were still dark, just as much proof of her lust as the damp spot in her knickers. A shiver shot down his spine. 

“Belle… I… you’re sure?” he managed. “Are you sure?”

She licked her lips. For a long moment, he thought she might not answer, calmed only by the fact that her eyes wouldn’t move from his. She was open as always, letting him see into her soul even now, especially now. If he allowed himself, he could break down from that fact alone. 

But then she thumbed his temples, a small smile working at her lips, and nodded. “I’m sure,” she murmured. “I want you.” 

His cock twitched, pressed tight against her pelvis, and they both groaned. Her eyes fluttered shut, hips moving of their own volition to get closer and closer to him. He felt like a schoolboy, ready to shoot off at a moment’s notice, but he forced himself not to. Holding onto his sanity with his fingernails, he pulled her closer and rested his forehead against hers.

“This isn’t going to be romantic, or nice,” he panted. “I don’t… I don’t even have a condom.”

“It’s okay. I don’t have expectations.” Her hands stilled in his hair, nails resting sharply against his neck. Delicious as it felt, though, he couldn’t miss the blush rising up her neck, or the way she turned her face to look at the glove box. “I… I don’t have anything to compare this to.”

Guilt tapped at the back of his skull – for taking her first time in a parked car like a prostitute, for being turned on by the thought of being her first anyway, for thinking about this when he should be thinking about his baby girl, for existing at all. But then he felt her hand on his head, moving in small circles where his hair brushed the skin, and he was blissfully lost. 

Shaking, he moved his hands from her chest to wedge between her thighs, coaxing the heavy material of her jeans down her legs. He could see the patch on her underwear, not so small as it was before, and it was all he could do to keep his eyes from rolling back in his head. Still, he had to be sure, so, careful as he could manage, he fingered his way under the cotton, testing the wet flesh for himself. 

And it was wet. Warm, hot, and entirely fucking wet. 

He brushed his fingers to the left, seeking out that coveted wet mark at her base. His fingers slipped as he worked them down, slickened by the moisture of her body, and she suddenly froze. Her hands pressed flat against his head, holding him to her like a ballast as she rocked down on his knuckles. She gasped once, then shivered, eyes darting to and fro in confusion. Again, his mouth felt dry. He wouldn’t have to worry about getting her off, at least, he thought to himself. Overstimulation would be the only issue. 

He tucked the thought away for the next rainy day. 

He didn’t waste as much time with himself. Twitchy though his fingers were, he managed to unzip the rest of the way and draw himself out. His flesh felt raw and hot in his grip, just two nice strokes from spurting off, but he bit down on his lip and kept going. He had to be inside her. It was more than a need now – it was an obsession. 

Beneath him, Belle untucked one of her hands from his hair and moved it to his hip. She squeezed him tightly, plucking the material of his trousers as much as his skin, and a low curse fell from his lips at the sensation. She smirked, or tried to – the action was dulled by her still darting eyes. It was the first time the expression had ever looked sweet instead of predatory, and he embraced that for all it was worth, moving his own mouth down to kiss it from her mouth. She sighed into him when tongue touched hers, eyelids fluttering and hips canting slowly upward, and he moved. 

If he was worried about cumming to soon before, it was nothing to how he felt now. Tight didn’t begin to describe her – she was a vice, clinging to him like a second skin as he moved inside her. His breath faltered, eyes clamped shut to keep himself from losing focus. He had to make this good for her, too. He had to. 

“Hold… hold onto my shoulders,” he commanded, gripping the cloth at her back to bring her closer to his chest. She was arched almost entirely off the leather seat, allowing him easy access to rub her spine, her ribs, her arse. And when she obeyed, drawing her warm, heavy arms around his neck, he found himself able to caress the back of her thighs, too. The muscles relaxed under his touch, shivering loose as she began to feel him like he felt her. He saw the moment it started to feel good, saw the pupils of her eyes explode as she held him tighter. He shifted, barely an inch, but it was enough – without even lubing her up, Belle was wet enough to take him in in one, quick slide.

This time, his eyes really did roll back. “Fuck.”

Her hips jerked in response, as if she thought he was ordering her instead of cursing. It was a welcome sensation all the same, being engulfed by her so fully that he could feel it up to his hairline. His body quaked. 

“Belle. Belle, sweetheart,” he mumbled, nuzzling the words into her neck. He pulled back softly, and pistoned in again, blood boiling with the sound of each moan and hiss from her lips. 

Then she rolled her hips, flicking that sticky, wet nub of flesh against the base of his cock, and they were both lost. 

It happened fast. His hands were gentle – he forced them to be, afraid more of breaking her than losing her now – but the rest of him was blown, overtaken by every sweet inch of the woman below him. His hips set out a pounding rhythm, pushing her hard and fast even as he cradled her head to keep it from hitting the door. She cried for him, kissing him softly and murmuring his name as she held him. He licked at her arm, her neck, her cheek, everything his tongue could reach. She was covered in sweat and lust and he intended to taste every drop of it. It was too much. 

He came with a shout, forcing his thumb between them at the last moment to flick her clit and send her spiraling with him. Her body heaved, her breath lost as she gyrated against him, and he held onto the moment for as long as he could. He wanted this moment burned into his skull – the most beautiful, wonderful woman he’d ever met, coming apart for him in his arms. 

Later, he’d have to face what had happened. He’d clean them both up, drop her off, and go back to his miserable home, alone.

But for now, in his car, in her arms… for now, he could pretend that she was his. She was his, and he wasn’t a failure.


End file.
